


like you've never known fear

by essily



Series: A Simple Pain [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, percy and vax have some shit to sort out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-24 12:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16175381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essily/pseuds/essily
Summary: Percy and Vax have been friends, and they have been brothers, and they have ceased to be either. But feelings do not stop when you tell them to, and in the wake of Percy's temporary death, Vax offers an olive branch. Considering all the wrong he's done, Percy should not accept it. But in terms of his heart?He's never missed his brother more.A.K.A. Vax has an overflowing heart and Percy is learning to feel love as something uncomplicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Home to Me" by Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The full line is:
> 
> How dare you love me like you've never known fear  
> When you've got more troubles than days in the year?
> 
> Anyway enjoy these dumb boys, I wrote this over like a week of midnights when I have nothing better to do than think about Vax and his infinite love and brotherhood and all that jazz.

Percy had to admit, he felt like garbage. Sure, he was grateful for being resurrected and all, but couldn’t there have been a little more actual healing involved? Or at least some strong painkillers? His whole body ached with an ache that he knew only rest could fix, but right now he didn’t want to rest. He wanted to be with his friends, out drinking as if nothing had happened. Instead he was relegated to the darkness of his own room, to face the looming void of sleep.

He didn’t want to sleep. That was the worst of it. When he had been dead, it had been just like sleeping, or at least he didn’t remember feeling anything. It might have been like a dream, forgotten as soon as he awoke, but whatever the dream was, he knew it was not worth leaving Vox Machina behind. And sleeping… sleeping now came with the risk of never waking up again.

Nevertheless, he managed to lie down on his bed, stripped down to what could pass for a nightshirt and loose pants, and stared at the ceiling for what could have been any length of time. His brain was sluggish, slow, but thoughts came just as quickly as always. He just felt them go by, helpless to control them, too tired to regulate them. He found himself thinking about Vex’ahlia’s speech to him- he had heard it, from somewhere beyond- and the things Keyleth had said. Almost every one of them had said some kind word over his body to help with the resurrection spell. Almost every one.

Vax’ildan had not said anything. Percy had cursed himself that he couldn’t see, could only hear, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to see at all. Half of him was certain that what he saw on Vax’s face would reassure him, some proof that he was missed and cared for. The other half of Percy was too afraid that he would find nothing at all. That his fuck-up was too bad this time, that Vax’ildan would never care for him again, that he was just as happy with Percy dead and gone.

He didn’t want to think that, but the feeling crept up in his chest as he lay in his bed, like cold water being poured over him. He closed his eyes. Reminded himself that he was alive. When he had come to, Vax’ildan had been kneeling over him, fingers in his hair, smiling through tears. His wings were stretched out in front of him like a shelter over them both. And when he had sent Percy to bed, his words had been worried, insistent. 

And yet just yesterday they had been at odds. Just yesterday, Vax’ildan had hated him. He didn’t know what to believe. Percy let out a long sigh, trying to relax his aching muscles. He felt heavy as stone, as lead. For a while after he’d woken up, he’d been cold to the bone, a deep, pervasive cold that he couldn’t seem to shake. It was still there, just a little bit, as if he had been frozen and was now thawing out little by little, just the very center of him still flecked with ice.

At some hour of the night, he heard the others come home, bustling and noisy. He didn’t mind the sound. He didn’t know why they had left him alone in the first place. He wanted nothing less than to be alone. He wanted nothing more than for Keyleth to come talk with him, or to camp out with Vex and Trinket, or for Scanlan to compose an awful limerick about his unfortunate situation, or for Grog to carry him around when he was too weak to walk.

That was not what he got. He first heard the noise a quarter of an hour after his friends returned. A creak on the floorboards outside his room. Then, nothing. Percy knew Vax well, knew that once he made a noise he did not make it again, and this was one little hint to his presence that he wouldn’t repeat. Percy waited a moment in silence, then wondered if Vax was still outside his door or if he had stolen away again.

His door whined a little on its hinges as it opened, just enough for Vax’s slender form to slip through. Percy knew Vex could see him, see his eyes half-open and unsleeping, but he couldn’t see Vax very well in the moonlight. It was impossible to read his expression.

“Percival? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

He turned over with a determined huff, intent on ignoring him, but his breath caught halfway as pain seized his chest. He tried to hide it, but Vax had already noticed.

“Percival.” His footsteps were approaching now. “Are you in pain? Do you want me to get Pike?”

“No.” Percy tried to make his voice hard, but his teeth gritted against the pain, and his disused voice came out scratchy. He grimaced. “Why are you here, Vax’ildan?”

“I… You were dead yesterday, in case you forgot.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of forgetting that.” He wished he did. He didn’t want to think of it, how he had been shocked to hear he’d only been dead one night, because in that other place he had gone it felt like years. “That doesn’t answer my question. What are you doing in my room in the middle of the night?”

“What were you doing awake?”

“Were you just going to sneak in here when I was sleeping?”

“Maybe I was.” 

Percy turned his head over his shoulder to make an attempt at glaring at Vax in the dark, but the pain got the better of him again, and he slumped miserably back onto his bed. 

Vax sighed deeply, and Percy could have sworn it was a bit shaky, a bit unsteady. “I don’t want to fight anymore, Percy. That’s why I’m here.” There was a long moment of silence, then Percy felt the bed dip beside him as Vax sat down. Not much- Vax’ildan was not only below average height, but thin. Almost exactly the same build as his sister, though even she probably had more meat on her bones. It was what had struck Percy first about him when they had found him in that prison cell. It felt like yesterday, looking up after an eternity in darkness to see a pair of beautiful twins. At first he had thought they were hallucinations. Only his own delusion could invent something so lovely for him in that awful place.

But they were real. And one of them was sitting on his bed years later. Percy would have been happy about that, if he hadn’t hurt and disappointed Vax so many times. If they were still friends like they had been before.

“Percy, when you died, I…”

Percy braced himself for whatever came next. 

“Let me start over. Percy… You know I was angry with you for a long time. Because you hurt Vex. It was an accident, but she’s my twin, and I was ready to hold that grudge forever. Vex means everything to me, and I was willing to ignore what you meant to me. What you still mean to me.”

Percy managed to turn so he was facing Vax. He was sitting at the foot of Percy’s bed, not looking at him, his hand absently touching the raven’s skull that Percy had given him. 

“What I’m trying to say is that I’m a fool, and I know that. I have always… followed my heart. Sometimes, though, my heart doesn’t know what it wants. Or rather…” He looked right at Percy then. “What it needs.”

His face was similar to how it had been when Percy had woken up from death. Not the same expression, but some of the same vulnerability. He quickly looked away again, clutching the skull to his chest.

“Percy… I forgave you long ago. I did not show it. Perhaps I didn’t even know it until now. I was angry, of course I was, but it wasn’t your fault. A stupid mistake, that was all it was. And now all of our mistakes have killed you too. When I saw you dead…” 

Percy sat up as well as he could and scooted closer to Vax where he sat at the end of the bed. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what he could say. 

“You could have died.” Vax’s voice was strained, as if they weren’t the words he wanted to say.

“I did die,” Percy replied drily.

“You could have died forever. Thinking that I hated you. Thinking I didn’t forgive you. You almost didn’t come back, and I almost lost the rest of my time with you because of some stupid grudge.”

“I came back. No thanks to you.” Percy couldn’t keep the acid out of his words. Vax was right, he was a fool. If Vax had forgiven him, then why hadn’t he told him so? Percy had wasted so much grief, then, so much worrying over whether Vax would ever see him as a friend again, when he had already been forgiven. And then when he had died, and Vax hadn’t said anything over his body to bring him back, not a word… Who was he to claim that he cared?

Vax recoiled. “I…” 

“Let me sleep, Vax’ildan.”

Percy lay back down on his bed and turned his face away so he wouldn’t see Vax anymore. There was no point in all this if Vax didn’t mean it. If there was no way to be brothers again. He would rather have ended it all now, run away, if he thought that would be any less painful than staying in this in-between place. Maybe it would hurt less if he started letting go now. Percy screwed his eyes shut and wished for sleep to come.

After a stunned, silent minute, Percy felt the weight lift from his bed, but there was no noise until the soft sound of his door closing in the stillness.

\--

“All I’m saying is that you obviously know your brother much better than I do. And I’m not… angry at him, that’s not exactly it. I just don’t understand him.”

Vex looked at Percy thoughtfully, and uncomfortably closely, for a long moment. Just as he was starting to physically itch under her scrutiny, she leaned back in her chair.

They were the only two awake at this point in the morning. Everyone else was sleeping in, but Vex had stopped in to see how he was doing and brought him breakfast. He had to admit, he’d been starving, and some fresh meat and eggs were just what he needed to feel like himself again.

He had found himself spilling the story of Vax coming into his room, and while Vex had been pleased to hear that Vax had somewhat forgiven him, her brow had knitted when Percy explained the end of their interaction.

“Have you ever considered that he might just care about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you asked him why he was there, was that because you really didn’t know? Or because you didn’t believe he could care about you that much?”

“Vex,” Percy sighed. “You weren’t there when Vax found out I was the one who set off the trap. The way he looked at me…” He shook his head. “He hated me. I wouldn’t blame him if he still did now, so why would he come to me suddenly all forgiving?”

“Because he cares.”

“He hates me.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t know how to love you.” Percy went still at that. 

Vax?

Love him?

He remembered when they had spoken in the tunnel, just before everything had gone to shit. How they had been so close, so easy together. That calm that came over him when Vax put an arm around him, let him rest his head against his shoulder, called him brother.

It was not just that Percy had hurt Vax’s sister. It was that in doing so, he had broken the brotherhood Vax had given him. Broken whatever trust he had left. Broken Vax’s heart.

Percy loved Vax. That was one thing that had never ceased to be true. But he didn’t think Vax could return that. Not now.

He realized suddenly that he had been quiet for a long time. Vex sighed and took Percy’s hand, threading their fingers together. She leaned her head on his shoulder, nestling close in a way so similar to her brother that Percy’s heart ached.

“Percy, when you were gone… could you hear us speak to you? The things we said during the ritual?”

Percy remembered all the things Vex’ahlia had said to him, and felt his face flush red. “I did. And I want you to know, Vex, I… It meant a lot to me. What you said.”

“I’m glad. But you… You couldn’t see us, could you? Not during the ritual, not before that?”

“No.”

Vex’s grip on his hand tightened. “I know when my brother is hurting. I know Vax’s feelings as soon as he has them, just as well as I know my own. I wasn’t paying much attention to him, of course, not after losing you, but… He was silent for a reason. He went quiet. The night after it happened, he got us all to make a blanket fort and sleep together, because he didn’t want anyone to be alone. Percy, Vax was more shaken than I’ve ever seen him about anyone but me.”  
Percy leaned his head against hers and kept listening, unsure what to think.

“I don’t know if I ever saw him so afraid. When you were lying on the altar for the ritual, he didn’t speak, but he… he went to you. He knelt down by you and he put out his wings and he… he sheltered you. Wrapped his wings around you like a cloak. And when you started breathing, he was so relieved.” She took her head from his shoulder, then turned his face so he’d have to look at her. “We all were. Percy, I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Percy choked on the words a few times, trying to make them right. “Thank you, Vex’ahlia.” It was simple, but he had said what he needed to.

She kissed his forehead and lingered there for a moment. Percy had a sneaking suspicion that it was meant to hide her tears as much as to comfort him.

“You should talk to him. If you feel ready.”

“Would you send him in when you go? I don’t think I can…”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Her smile was so charming and so quintessentially Vex, it warmed his heart. For all that the twins were similar, the differences between them were what he really loved, and Vex’ahlia was bright where Vax was dark, Vex was sweet where Vax could be bitter. Even her faults were complemented in her brother the same way. 

How could anyone not love them? He felt like the unluckiest bastard in the world, to be who he was and to love who he loved. And for there to be two…

They stayed and talked a while longer, but Vex had things to do, and after a time she left him with another kiss, slipping out the door.

It was a few minutes before Vax’s knock came on the door. 

“Come in,” Percy called, and the door creaked open just enough to let Vax through. It was a quirk of his that he always entered a room that way, whether he had to or not. As he came into view, this time in the light of late morning filtered through the curtains, Vax looked tired. Worn out. As if he hadn’t slept at all.

“...Vex’ahlia said you wanted to see me. Should I believe her?”

“Believe her,” Percy said, sighing. “We cannot go on much further without addressing the… problems we are having.”

“Percival, I am sorry for last night. I should not have disturbed your rest. I know you needed it, and I should have just waited to talk to you.”

“You didn’t disturb me. I couldn’t sleep anyway. Vax, I… I shouldn’t have turned you away.”

Something in Vax’s expression softened even as he stood stiffly by the door. He was wearing only simple clothes, not ready for travel, but underneath his shirt was the outline of the skull brooch Percy had given him, hanging around his neck on a chain.

“I spoke with Vex’ahlia this morning. I admit, I… I did not realize how much my death had affected Vox Machina.”

Vax swallowed, nodded.

“I didn’t ever ask how you killed Ripley.”

“All together. It was gruesome. Are you sure you wish to know?”

“I would like to.”

“I cut off her arm with my dagger. Scanlan carved the De Rolo crest in her forehead. Grog severed her body at the stomach. Keyleth strangled her with vines. Vex shot an arrow in her heart and another down her throat.”

The De Rolo crest? Percy felt his throat tighten. They had killed her so brutally, so awfully, in his name?

Vax’s fists were clenched at his sides now, almost shaking. Percy saw him uncurl them, stretch his thin fingers. He found himself thinking that they were not long, only thin, making his hands seem very small. And Vax was not tall, either, only as tall as Vex. Percy pushed the thought out of his mind, but he couldn’t help but remember the feeling of those lithe fingers running through his hair.

“I… Was I the reason?”

“Of course you were the reason.” Vax’s voice had softened, so quiet now that it turned familiar and unfamiliar at once. Percy knew this voice, the voice of Vax’ildan’s heartfelt moments, his most heart-rending confessions. “Percival, I know that I overstepped a boundary last night. You and I are… no longer friends. I have made that abundantly clear, for my own part.”

Percy responded with the same sad smile he always gave in times like this. Anything else would hurt too much.

“I was the one who broke off our friendship. I had no right to mourn you.” Then Vax’s eyes moved upwards, locked on Percy’s. “And yet I did.” His face twisted into a wry smile. “Gods, it’s preposterous of me, isn’t it? I thought I hated you, and then you died. I thought I wanted you to stay away from me and Vex, but when you went away, I… I wanted to cut out my heart. Would it be cruel of me to say that I wanted to be your friend again?”

Percy’s throat was tight. “No,” he managed. “That would not be cruel at all. Listen, I deserved your anger. What you said to me that day was all true. But I am a selfish man, and right now… right now when I think of what I want, what I can salvage… I would like to be your friend, Vax’ildan. I would love that. Vax, come here.”

Vax stepped silently toward him and Percy sat on the edge of his bed, reaching for Vax’s hands and taking them loosely in his own. 

“There is no way in the world I can deserve your trust again. I don’t deserve it and I don’t want it. I don’t want to hurt you or Vex or anyone ever again. I don’t want to be who I am forever, but I liked who I was with you. I would like to be that man again. If that means that we have to work to fix things between us, I’ll do as much as it takes. But for my own part… my feelings for you have never changed. It will only be me earning back your respect and possibly your affection.”

“You have felt the same about me all this time?” Vax’s brows knit together. Percy took one hand out of his to touch the silver raven’s skull around his neck. 

“Why do you think I made you this?”

“Because you wanted me to forgive you.”

“I gave you that skull because I wanted to show you I cared, without asking for your forgiveness. I didn’t deserve that, and I still don’t.”

“I have already forgiven you.”

“You don’t know everything I’ve done.”

A sigh. Vax sat down beside Percy, making him turn to face him. His grip on his hand did not falter, only tightened slightly as he began to speak.

“Percival, you may be right. You may not be a good man. I don’t know everything about you, even after all these years, and you could be the worst person to ever exist. I can’t know that, neither of us can know that. And I have always been a little less than smart. I have always cared too much about the wrong things, the wrong people. If you are selfish enough to want my forgiveness, then I am stupid enough to forgive you.”

Percy opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it, opened it again, and heaved a sigh. He shut his eyes tightly, tried to keep out visions of the time he had spent dead, with only darkness and Orthax and nothing else. He tried not to think of the way his soul had felt torn to shreds, a patchwork of memories that only vaguely resembled a person. He focused instead on Vax’ildan’s hands in his.

“I don’t want your forgiveness. I just want…”

“It’s okay to want things, Freddie.”

Percy looked up at him suddenly. “I want that.”

“What?”

“I want you to call me Freddie again. I don’t want you to forgive me, or think I am a good man, or trust me. I don’t want any of that, not yet. But if we are to… start over, to rebuild from the beginning, then that’s the first thing you can do. Call me Freddie.”

“Freddie.” He spoke almost with reverence. “Can I hug you?” Vax’s eyes were definitely not dry. “Please?”

Percy started to say no, but remembered Vax’s hands in his hair and thought that perhaps he could let himself indulge a little. Not all touch had to bruise. “Yes,” he said, and Vax’s arms went around him. It was cold, because Vax was cold, but Percy swore he could feel something in him melting, something that had been frozen before. He sighed long and deep, relaxing into his hold, wrapping his arms around the other man. Not tightly, but there.

“I was so afraid,” Vax admitted, “that you wouldn’t want to come back.”

“I’m here now.”

“I didn’t say anything, I know. I knew my voice wouldn’t make you want to come back to us. I have driven you away too much for that to work.”

“I am here now.”

“No more dying.”

“I can try.”

Vax pulled away. Percy didn’t know how to end this conversation, but it dawned on him that perhaps it didn’t have to end. There was a comma, a continuation, where everything could have ended, but instead began again.

“Vax?”

“Yes, Freddie?”

Percy lay down the wrong way on his bed, flopping down with an undignified floomph. He put on his best jaunty smile, crossed his arms, and laughed. “Do you really think I’m handsome?”

He would cherish the responding shove for the rest of his worldly days.

Vax did not stay long that morning, but when he left it was with a promise to return.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an interlude, a loss

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. That was all Percy could think, his limbs frozen at his sides as he struggled against the Raven Queen’s spell. He wanted to run at her, guns blazing, he wanted to hurt her so badly it stung.

He felt the Raven Queen release him when the others stopped arguing. He didn’t turn, however. He didn’t think he could bear to look at his family’s faces as they lost one of their own. All because of Percy’s stupid mistake.

“Are you afraid?” Grog asked, and Percy closed his eyes against tears. It didn’t hold them in, but sent them sliding down his cheeks.

“No. I… I am going to visit my mother. And I’ll see all of you again.” There was a pause, and Percy felt his shoulders quaking. Suddenly, there was a cold but gentle weight on his shoulder, Vax’s hand with trembling figures that betrayed the calmness of his voice. “Freddie…”

Percy bit back a sob at the sound of his nickname, the last time he might ever hear it. Vax turned him around to face him, but Percy only took one look at his face before looking down again. He couldn’t bear it. The pain scripted on his fine features. The redness in his eyes, the tears that had fallen. All because of him, he thought, all because Percy had taken his sister from him and how had Vax ever forgiven him, ever been his friend again, when his mistakes were tearing him from his family and-

Vax’s hands rested on his arms and squeezed.

“I do not ac-accept this.” Percy couldn’t keep his voice steady, his fingernails from digging into his palms. The anger was a furnace in his throat, pushing tears from his eyes.

“I know.” Vax’s soft smile was the most terrible thing he had ever seen, because he was still beautiful. Even now, at the end.

Percy wanted to say so many things, but none of them made it past the lump in his throat. Vax was telling him to love Vex, and love Keyleth, and of course, of course he was going to do those things and he said so, and then Vax gave him a tearful smile and a nod and he turned away. Percy stood frozen as he said goodbye to them all, and his heart broke for every one of them.

And when Vax walked away, snowdrops bloomed from where he stood to them, around Percy’s feet, and there was a light from within the Raven Queen’s cloak, and then in the briefest of moments, Vax was gone.

Gone. 

Percy staggered back. Distantly he heard the others crying. As if he were controlled by some other force, he felt himself use manners on Scanlan, speak to the others, and eventually drift away to be on his own. The girls were crying, even Grog was crying, and he couldn’t help them. Not him. Not the one who had caused it in the first place.

Percy found himself sitting just inside, tapping the contract in his pocket. Debating. Surely his soul was a small price to pay to bring Vax back? Even if Percy would not see him again, he would be with the rest of his family, and that was what mattered. Percy did not deserve to be included in that.

“Ipkesh,” he called, but there was no response. He kept going. Maybe Ipkesh hadn’t heard him, or simply wasn’t replying. “Could you bring him back? The thing you gave me, could it bring him back?”

Percy waited a long minute, but there was nothing. Silence. There was something cold inside him now, something that had settled in his stomach and refused to move. He closed his eyes. Vex sat down beside him a few minutes later.

Their conversation helped somewhat, the assurance that she did love him and that everything was finally over, but he was beginning to recognize the coldness in his chest as something infinitely worse than guilt. It was the pure, uncomplicated sadness of missing someone who was a part of you.


	3. Chapter 3

The first year, they all tried to ignore the anniversary. It had been hard enough on the twins’- Vex’s- birthday, when Percy had watched her go through every stage of grief all over again, on what should have been a happy occasion. Nobody wanted to relive that. The day that Vax had left was forever burned into the hearts of Vox Machina, and how dare that day come again when it marked such an awful pain?

But ignoring it had not gone well at all. It had only made them think about it more, and when they wanted to seem like they were all dealing well on their own, it had pushed them apart like magnets on the wrong side, leaving them isolated with the pain they were pretending not to feel. Percy remembered feeling adrift, wandering the halls of Castle Whitestone until his feet carried him to the little spot in the woods with the bench Pike had made. Kiki had been sitting there, knees pulled close to her chest, sobs wracking her frame. 

He had broken then, and couldn’t hide from the grief anymore. He sat next to her and hugged her close, saying nothing for the longest time. Then, when he’d brought her back to the castle, he’d felt torn open, and couldn’t do a thing to comfort his wife. Vex had been crying, but he didn’t have the strength to wipe away her tears. He felt the urge to do something, to run away to his workshop where everything made sense, but all his limbs would do was hang listlessly at his sides. He could not be Vax for her. He could not be Vax for any of them.

After the disaster of the first year, they had all silently agreed that the anniversary would not be ignored. They would recognize it, though maybe not do too much so soon. In fact, that year was the year things began to seem almost normal again, even with the gap in their lives. Vex was pregnant, and before the anniversary was close, she gave birth to twins, both girls. At first she had said she wanted a boy, but upon seeing them for the first time, Percy knew they were perfect.

This year, everyone had gathered in Whitestone, even those who had been away for a long time. None of them wanted to be alone. It reminds me, said Scanlan, of when you were dead, Percy. And Vax said none of us should sleep alone. Percy obviously hadn’t been there, but he supposed it was similar. Pike was happy to be with the family, giving out hugs freely as they arrived one by one. Scanlan had even earned a kiss on the cheek. Grog showed up bloody and smiling on their doorstep. Keyleth was subdued, but present.

The absence of their seventh member was like a presence in itself, but that was why they needed to be together. 

On the day, they were quiet, pensive, but not falling apart. One by one, or sometimes two by two, they went to pay their respects to Vax in different ways. None of them wanted to go to the Raven Queen’s temple, not after everything that she had done. Percy didn’t ask where they did go, but Scanlan had come back smelling like the shitty ale and smoke of a Whitestone tavern, and Percy knew he’d been spinning tales and singing songs.

In the late afternoon, Vex and Percy each took one of the baby girls in their arms and started the walk into the woods where the bench was tucked away. Trinket bumbled along beside them, stopping to sniff at the snowdrops that grew denser as they drew closer to the memorial itself. 

It was exactly as Percival remembered it. He had been here several times in the first year, sometimes to rant and rage like he would have if Vax had been there with him, and other times just to sit quietly and try his best to feel like Vax was there, to convince himself that somehow he was still watching over them. The place was always serene- the forest floor was blanketed in snowdrops, except for where Pike had placed a little stone path up to the wooden bench. He understood why she had put it there. Everyone who went had the concern of stepping on the flowers. Trinket, however, didn’t see an issue with that, or experimentally biting some of the blossoms straight out of the ground.

With the hand that wasn’t holding little Vesper, he took Vex’ahlia’s in his own. Together they made their way to the bench. Trinket flopped down beside them ungracefully, but with a small, sad grunt that Percy chose to take as some acknowledgement of what they were doing here.

They sat in silence for a long time, neither of them sure what to say. Percy didn’t know what he could talk about- there was, of course, the pain of seeing his wife go through this, losing a brother, a twin no less. It was so unfair, and it had taken so long for her to convince him he was not to blame. Sometimes he still didn’t believe it. Watching Vex mourn broke his heart. But what he hardly ever let himself acknowledge was the simpler, sharper pain. He, too, had lost a brother. It was not all guilt and anger. Sometimes, Percy just felt empty in a certain place inside him, a place Vax’s presence had once filled. Sometimes it was just sadness.

“I miss him.” The words tumbled from his lips after what must have been a quarter of an hour. “Sometimes I feel awful for causing all this, and for not being able to help you through it, but most of the time, I just…” He furrowed his brow, tried to keep his focus there and not on the burning behind his eyes. “I just miss him. I bloody miss him.”

“I miss him too,” Vex said, that sweet, doting voice like a balm. “It’s okay to miss him, Darling, we all do. He was a part of us. And don’t you ever say you don’t help me.” With her free hand she reached up and smoothed the hair out of his face. Her fingers felt very much like Vax’s, but he pushed the memory away. “You help by being here. You make it all bearable by being my husband.”

There was the crack in her voice, the telltale sign of tears. But this time they didn’t last so long. This time, they were joined by Percy’s own as they both mourned the loss of a brother. Two years later may have sounded like a long time, and in some ways it was, but when thinking about Vax, it felt so short. Percy wiped her tears away and kissed her head, then bent down and kissed little Whitney’s head as well, then Vesper’s, then he scratched Trinket’s head and was awarded with a vague harumph. 

They stayed there for a while, but the twins were getting hungry, and so with a last long look at the bench, they headed back home. Neither of them said that Vax should have been there, should have had the chance to meet his nieces, should have had children of his own, should have been home.


End file.
